BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European allies of NATO and Canada will increase defence spending by 4.3 percent in 2017, marking a cumulative $46 billion (36 billion pounds) jump since cuts stopped in 2014, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.
“To keep our nations safe, we need to keep working to increase defence spending and fairer burden-sharing across our alliance,” Stoltenberg said a day before NATO defence ministers meet in Brussels to discuss greater security expenditure, which U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for.
“After years of decline, in 2015 we saw a real increase in defence spending across European allies and Canada … this year, we foresee an even greater real increase of 4.3 percent,” he told a news conference.
(Reporting by Robin Emmott, Editing by Gabriela Baczynska)
